Below you will find third-party sites and resources. If you have an effective, results-oriented resource that's not included, please let us know.

Employers

Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce/Associated Industries of Arkansas
The Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce/Associated Industries of Arkansas is the leading voice for business at the State Capitol and serves as the primary business advocate on all issues affecting Arkansas employers. Its mission is to promote a pro-business, free-enterprise agenda and prevent anti-business legislation, regulations and rules.

Be Pro Be Proud
Right now, Arkansas’s workforce is facing a challenge. Over 23% of the current skilled professionals are at or near retirement age. But our state’s workforce isn’t prepared to fill the positions our retiring workers are creating. Now is the time to act. By changing how Arkansans think about the job opportunities provided by skilled professions, we can inspire today’s youth and lead them, and our state, down the path to prosperity.

Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce
The Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce is the principal business-driven leadership organization responsible for fostering the economic growth and development of the Little Rock Region to ensure that business and industry may operate profitably and enhance the earning opportunities and quality of life for every citizen.

Northwest Arkansas Council
The Northwest Arkansas Council is a private, non-profit organization committed to sustaining and improving Northwest Arkansas as a great place to live and conduct business. We serve as a catalyst and collaborator for finding solutions to the opportunities and challenges facing this thriving region.

Governance

Arkansas Department of Education
The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) is a dedicated service agency that provides leadership, resources and technical support to school districts, schools, and educators. As the administrative arm of the State Board of Education, ADE is responsible for implementing state and federal education laws, disbursing state and federal funds, holding schools and districts accountable for performance, licensing all educators and providing public transparency. ADE serves students, parents, and the general public by protecting the public trust through adherence to laws, strong stewardship of public funds and accountability for student performance.

Arkansas Nonpublic School Accrediting Association (ANSAA)
The Arkansas Nonpublic School Accrediting Association, Inc. (ANSAA), founded in 1988, is a nonprofit service organization providing guidance and assistance to the nonpublic schools of Arkansas. The primary purpose of ANSAA is to promote quality education by adhering to responsible professional standards through its evaluation/accreditation process. Our student enrollment for the 2012-13 year can be measured as 19,252 students in 89 schools under the direction and instruction of 158 administrators, 195 office personnel, 1,696 teachers, 71 media/library personnel, 60 technology personnel, 46 counselors, and 277 support staff. We are affiliated with the National Federation of Nonpublic School State Accrediting Associations, which is approved by the U.S. Office of Education and CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education). ANSAA does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, handicap, national or ethnic origin.

Arkansas State Board of Education
The Arkansas State Board of Education is a nine-member board. In keeping with the requirements of Act 885 of 1999, the Board is composed of two members from each of the state's four congressional districts, and the remaining member is selected at-large. The Governor appoints members for seven-year terms. Composed of business and community leaders, the State Board represents the diverse population of Arkansas. The Board, which meets on the second Monday of each month, is the policy making body for public elementary and secondary education in Arkansas. The commissioner acts as the ex-officio secretary during State Board meetings. He participates, offering the Department's perspective on agenda items and provides a Commissioner's Report each month. He does not vote. The Arkansas Teacher of the Year participates as a non-voting member.

Charter Authorizing Panel
Dr. Ivy Pfeffer, ADE Deputy Commissioner, Chairman
Dr. Mike Hernandez – State Superintendent for the Office of Coordinated Support and Service
Toyce Newton – State Board of Education Member from August 18, 2009, to June 30, 2016
Dr. Jeremy Owoh – ADE Assistant Commissioner for Educator Effectiveness
Kathi Turner – Deputy Director for Career and Technical Education at the Arkansas Department of Career Education
Dr. Naccaman Williams – State Board of Education Member from August 11, 2004, to June 30, 2011
Mike Wilson – Education Advocate and Attorney in Jacksonville

America Succeeds
America Succeeds is a network of non-partisan, business-led, policy and advocacy organizations that offer an informed and credible “business voice for education” in each state. We believe great schools are good business.

PIE Network
The PIE (Policy Innovators in Education) Network’s mission is to connect state-level education advocacy organizations with colleagues across the country to amplify their voices and maximize their impact.

Performance & Accountability

ADE Data Center
The ADE Data Center is a collection of data systems; data tools and informational reports for educators, policy makers, teachers, parents, school districts, and anyone interested in official data from the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). This site is maintained by the ADE Division of Research & Technology, and most data is provided by Arkansas public school districts.

Arkansas Schools Data
Benchmark, End of Course, Norm Referenced, Demographics and Finances data are publicly available through the Arkansas Department of Education, but made user-friendly by University of Arkansas Office for Education Policy.

Aspire Arkansas (Key Education Indicators)
At Arkansas Community Foundation, we're in the business of providing resources to make charitable giving in our state more effective. We consider Aspire Arkansas one of the most important tools in our toolkit. The report is both a yardstick to measure where our state currently stands and a compass to help you and your neighbors determine where we should go. Equipped with this tool, we hope you'll have the information you need to begin to identify the local needs you will address with your time, talent and treasure.

My School Info
My School Info allows the public to search and compare public schools and districts from across the State of Arkansas. The data presented on this website is periodically updated and reflective of information submitted by schools and districts to the Arkansas Department of Education.

NAEP State Comparisons
NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) State Comparisons provides tables and maps that compare states and jurisdictions based on the average scale scores for selected groups of public school students within a single assessment year, or compare the change in performance between two assessment years.

Policy

ForwARd Arkansas
ForwARd Arkansas is a partnership of education, business, government and civil society leaders committed to improving public education in the state. How? By encouraging statewide discussion and making recommendations to ensure that all Arkansas students have access to the tools they need to succeed now and in the future. The group is currently conducting extensive research, encouraging statewide discussion, and developing a holistic plan to strengthen public education.

Office for Education Policy (OEP) Blog
The Office for Education Policy (OEP) is a research center within the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. The OEP exists to serve as a resource to state lawmakers, educators, administrators, and other leaders, providing them with current national, state, and regional research in education to support them in thoughtful decision-making concerning K-12 education in the State of Arkansas.

Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)
The Southern Regional Education Board is a nonprofit compact that works collaboratively with Arkansas and 15 other member states to improve education at every level from pre-K to postdoctoral study through many effective programs and initiatives. SREB's Challenge to Lead Goals for Education, which call for the region to lead the nation in educational progress, guide much of the organization's work.

University of Arkansas Office for Education Policy
Opened in the fall of 2003, the Office for Education Policy (OEP) is one of several research centers within the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas; our staff includes faculty members, research associates and graduate students who specialize in education research and policy. We are here to serve as a resource to state lawmakers, educators, administrators, and other leaders, providing them with current national, state, and regional research in education to support them in thoughtful decision-making concerning K-12 education in the State of Arkansas.

Reform

Arkansans for Education Reform Foundation
The Arkansans for Education Reform Foundation was established to leverage continued support for the tenants of Act 35, the most significant education-related legislation in state history. Business leaders, community influencers and residents across the state have come together to ensure positive change and tangible results become reality.

The Walton Family Foundation
Driven by the urgent need to dramatically raise student achievement, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, the Walton Family Foundation has invested more than $1 billion to date in initiatives that expand parental choice and equal opportunity in education. We believe that empowering parents to choose high quality schools with public funding, whether traditional public schools, private schools, or public charter schools - will help transform and strengthen American K-12 education.

School Resources

Arkansas Public School Resource Center
APSRC was created to provide educational support services and technical assistance to charter schools and rural school districts in the areas of law, finance, technology, and teaching and learning. In addition, APSRC provides professional development training for educational entities.

EAST Initiative
Created by Tim Stephenson in Greenbrier, Arkansas, EAST® (Environmental and Spatial Technology, Inc.) is unlike any other model in modern education. It is a project-based, service-learning oriented program that provides students with high-end technology available in the most progressive fields in the world. At its heart, EAST is a coordinated effort to provide today’s students with an educational atmosphere that allows them to gain insight into their own abilities to acquire and use information, solve problems and develop valuable experience. Since its inception in 1996, the EAST model has expanded to over 200 schools in five states (Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania).

Thea Foundation's Arkansas A+ Schools
The Thea Foundation’s Arkansas A+ Schools is a teaching philosophy rooted in the value of the arts in education and is modeled after the research-based A+ networks in North Carolina and Oklahoma. The A+ Schools Program is touted as the nation’s most successful arts-based, whole-school reform model.

Students

Arkansas Commitment
Established in 1999 by the vision of Dr. Dean Kumpuris and other civic and corporate leaders of Little Rock, the Arkansas Commitment Program is a nonprofit organization created to identify academically talented African-American high school students throughout central Arkansas and guide them to become leaders of society at large as well as within the African-American community. Its primary mission is to assist these students in acquiring the knowledge, skills and professional experience necessary for effective community leadership. This is achieved by numerous workshops and events related to continuing one's education, leadership and life skills conducted by community and business leaders, standardized test preparation, an extensive college search process specific for individual students, and a selective internship program.

Khan Academy
The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. It's a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

Support

AR Kids Read
Volunteers are the champions for children reading at grade level in our community. Each volunteer for the “in school” effort is asked to commit to 12 hours a semester, one hour per week for twelve weeks, to work with students one to one or in small groups to help them with their regular school reading curriculum. The focus is on developing a relationship with the students that promotes reading comprehension.

City Year Little Rock/North Little Rock
As tutors and mentors, City Year Little Rock/North Little Rock corps members provide critically needed services to some of Little Rock and North Little Rock’s most underserved children and youth.

Teachers

Arkansas State Teachers Association
As a state chapter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), the Arkansas State Teachers Association (ASTA) is a statewide non-union, professional educators' organization, advancing the profession by offering a modern approach to teacher representation and educational advocacy, as well as promoting professionalism, collaboration and excellence without a partisan agenda.

Arkansas Teacher Corps (ATC)
The Arkansas Teacher Corps (ATC) program is a collaborative partnership among the University of Arkansas, school districts, and local community organizations that aims to provide an accelerated path to teaching for the highest-performing and most talented individuals to have a lasting impact on students and communities in Arkansas.

Teach For America
Millions of students growing up in poverty lack the quality education that will allow them to succeed—just 8 percent graduate from college by age 24, compared with 80 percent of their more affluent peers. This inequity of opportunity limits the future of individual students, communities, and our nation as a whole. Teach For America is helping eliminate this injustice by finding, training, and supporting individuals committed to equality. These individuals start as teachers in the classroom and continue as lifelong leaders for social change.